The Writer Who Broke the Brandon Teena Story Revisits Her Biggest Mistakes

Cisgender journalists have not had (and still don’t really) the best track record when it comes to reporting on the lives of trans people. Frankly, far too many people fuck it up! Included in that history is Donna Minkowitz, The Village Voice reporter who broke the story of 21-year-old Brandon Teena’s brutal murder back in 1994, which inspired director Kimberly Peirce to make the Academy Award-winning 1999 movie Boys Don’t Cry. But rather than let her reporting, which posited dangerous theories like Teena’s trans identity was perhaps the result of past sexual abuse, stay uncorrected, Minkowitz is finally “making amends” for how she wrote Teena’s story.